Archive of Our Own ^beta

I held up my hands and remained calm. It's important to maintain control when you find yourself in a difficult situation. "You don't want to kill me," I told the pilot.

"Yeah, no kidding." The pilot's hand shook, but the barrel of her gun remained more or less on target. She looked inexperienced, which made her dangerous. "Clade, are you sure about this?"

"He's definitely a Radch." Clade gnawed on her thumbnail. "I'm only guessing about the pirate spy part."

I allowed my eyes to roll. "I'm only trying to hire passage for myself and my baggage. I can't see how it's piracy if I'm paying you."

"Strange baggage." The pilot's mouth twisted, and the gun jerked up for a moment before she got her hands back where they should be. "Even if Clade's not right about the Radch part."

"He's got the accent," said Clade.

"No gloves, though."

"He keeps fucking up our pronouns."

"So do you," pointed out the pilot. "I mean, if she is a Radch."

"Radchaai," I said, tiring of the banter.

"See!" said Clade, triumphant.

"Knowing grammar doesn't make me Radchaai," I said. Though there wasn't much point in keeping up the pretense, if they'd looked in my crates. That had always been a weak point in the plan, though I'd hoped that the sheer amount I'd overpaid for my transport would have overwhelmed any innocent curiosity.

"That's not the point," said Clade. "It's the explosives you've stuffed in our hold we care about."

The pilot's grip on the gun firmed, her finger tense on the trigger. I stifled a sigh. It had seemed so simple. Hire the ship and play boring wealthy merchant until we were far enough into deep space that enforcers would be difficult to summon. Then commandeer it, redirect its trajectory, and ram it into Anaander Mianaai's nearest palace. Given that the ship was full, as Clade noted, of explosives, the damage would make quite a statement.

I wanted to make a statement. I wanted to scream and scream. But a good captain knows that actions speak louder than words.

"I think," I said, "that we can reach an agreement—"

Clade scoffed. "I don't negotiate with Radch pirate spies."

"Radchaai," I corrected.

"I'm calling the enforcers," said the pilot, and turned to the console.

I leapt for her.

It wasn't my best plan. Sometimes I felt that my life had been a series of 'not the best plans.' Years slipping away as I lobbied for peaceful political reforms of the Radch empire, then years wasted trying to foment violent rebellion against Anaander Mianaai. The year that had lost me Justice of Toren to Anaander Mianaai's loyalists. Centuries slept away, hiding in a suspension pod. Then years spent wandering the colonies, hiding my name and my mission.

But this was the best plan I had right now. I couldn't afford to be taken by the enforcers. There were too many warrants out for me, Radchaai and otherwise. There were too many opportunities for Anaander Mianaai to find me and pluck me out of whatever justice system I found myself in.

A captain doesn't wait for events to happen to her.

I tackled the pilot to the ground and got a hand on the gun. The pilot's hand clenched, and I pushed the gun away as it fired, the powdered metal bullet dispersing harmlessly on the ship's hull. Then Clade threw herself into the melee, and everything became a confusing mess of elbows and teeth. I emerged from it with Clade holding my wrists behind my back and the pilot pressing the gun to my temple.

"I'll call the enforcers," repeated the pilot, though her voice sounded a little different with her nose broken.

"It'll take hours for them to get to us." Clade was panting, shallow pained gasps that suggested I'd been successful in at least cracking her rib. "If you turn away, he'll try to jump us again."

The pilot shifted, and the gun scraped against my forehead. "We can knock her out."

I didn't say anything. I let my mind flatten out, deep breaths in through my mouth, out through my nose. Preparing.

"Please let me knock her out," said the pilot. "She's humming again."

"No," said Clade. "I don't want another fight. We've gotta play this safe. Let's take her to the airlock."

My breathing tried to speed but I forced it to slow. I remembered the bodies floating outside, sucked out of Justice of Toren's torn belly. Lieutenant Awn's eyes widening and her mouth opening, the soundless cry as she—

"Shut up," snarled the pilot. "Stop humming!"

"Come on," said Clade. "Don't worry, we'll get rid of him."

"This is ridiculous." My voice sounded disgusted, because I was. Was this how it would end? After everything, a trading ship's captain and her pilot were just going to throw me out an airlock?

"What would you do in my place?" asked Clade, eyes narrowed.

I didn't waste any of my precious time thinking about that. My goals were very different from Clade's, and would remain so.

I had a few cards left to play, in reaching them.

As Clade and the pilot marched me through the ship, I reactivated my beacon. All Radchaai captains have them for location and retrieval, but I'd had a surgery early in my rebellion to put its use under my conscious control and make it more difficult to track me. I wouldn't mind being tracked, at the moment. If I was lucky, a Radchaai ship might spot my signal. If I was very very lucky, the ship's captain might take me into custody instead of executing me on sight.

"She's still humming," said the pilot.

"Don't worry," said Clade. "You won't hear him soon."

I decided to try to fight, but Clade was ready for me. I kicked at her groin and elbow at her stomach; she shoved me into the airlock. As the inner door closed and the outer door opened, I breathed out so my lungs wouldn't expand and tear in the low pressure. I couldn't see a way out, but every second alive was another second I could spend cursing Anaander Mianaai.

A rush of air pushed me out of the ship. I closed my eyes and focused on Anaander Mianaai's many faces, twisted with rage at my inevitable triumph.

Dying in the cold of space was painful. As my body spasmed and my brain began to fail, the face in my mind's eye changed. For a moment, just a moment, I could see Lieutenant Awn.

She was smiling.

---

The ceiling was white, rounded plastic and deeply familiar. I blinked at it, feeling my eyelids gum and stick.

I didn't waste any time wondering if I were hallucinating or dead. My lungs hurt with every breath, and there were correctives all over my bare hands and feet. The very very lucky had happened. Some Radchaai ship had appeared and pulled me out of the vacuum. Even stranger, its crew had given me first aid, put me in a standard-issue medical smock, and left me alone.

I tried to take a deep breath in, but my lungs and ribs hurt too much. I chewed on my lip instead. A captain takes advantage of opportunities when they are offered.

I turned my gaze away from the ceiling and found the contents of my pockets stacked on a tray next to the cot I was lying on. A few credit chips from three different systems. A fist-sized idol I'd picked up during a brief, failed attempt to impersonate a Radchaai priest. Most of my belongings remained on the little trading ship, along with the crates of explosives.

I turned my head the other way, looking for my clothes. They hadn't been left out where I could see, but there were other clothes, neatly folded on a chair. I pushed myself up and off the cot. I felt unsteady, but my legs seemed to work more or less as they should. I toddled over to the chair, one hand on the wall in case my body decided to tip forward onto the floor.

The jacket on top of the pile was part of a Radchaai fleet uniform, complete with trouser, shirt, gloves, and polished shoes. The jacket was out of fashion—not as old as the one I'd worn when I still served, but a few decades out of date. Someone's cast-offs, I assumed, though I didn't understand why I was being offered a uniform. There were no rank markings.

It looked like it would fit well. Not perfectly, but well.

There were running steps outside the medbay, and the door slid open as the runner skid to a stop. "Oh, good," said the ancillary. "You found the clothes."

I didn't answer, taking my time instead to take in the ancillary's sudden appearance. It obviously was an ancillary, despite its oddities. There was a flat quality to the eyes which any officer soon learned could distinguish an ancillary from even the most taciturn of human soldiers. But the ancillary's uniform was shabby, like that of a human soldier begging for a punishment detail, though its gloves were clean. Its hair was long and thick, tied up in a bun. And its face was a little too—elastic. That wasn't the exact word I wanted, but it was what popped into my mind. Its mouth was too mobile, and its nose wrinkled when it thought.

When the ship thought. Another unfamiliar sentence, oddly constructed.

"Do they fit?" asked ancillary. "I took your measurements, but my resources are limited and I—"

The thing didn't talk like an ancillary either. Nothing about this situation made sense.

What did I expect? Nothing about my life had made sense since I'd lost my ship and its crew.

"What ship is this?" I asked.

For some reason, the question seemed to bother the ship. The ancillary's nose wrinkled. I fought off a shiver of unease.

"Mercy of Seivarden," said the ancillary, after a pause, as if the ship was waiting to make sure I really wanted an answer.

That seemed implausible. I'd served on Mercy of Seivarden early in my career. It was where I'd first met Lieutenant Awn, both of us junior lieutenants, giving each other bad advice and relying on the experienced Esk and Issa decades we nominally commanded to keep us alive. Mercy of Seivarden had been an old ship even then, nearly antique. Radchaai ships served as long as possible, but not this long. Perhaps the name had been passed to a new ship.

"I'd like to speak with your captain," I said.

"Sorry," said the ancillary.

I waited for an explanation. But the ancillary just stared at me, eyes wide and mouth curved into what would've been a slight smile on a human and was been a broad, silly smile on an ancillary.

"I'm not interested in apologies." My voice shifted into the harsh tone I'd once used for recalcitrant soldiers. "Just get it done."

"There isn't a captain." The ancillary shrugged. "Or a lieutenant. Or anyone else. Just me."

It was my turn to stare. A captain should never be caught off-guard. Unfortunately I don't always meet my own standards.

"I'm sorry you woke up alone," said the ancillary. "I was all the way on the other side of myself when I felt you moving."

Implausible was giving way to impossible. "You're drifting?" I asked. "Just you and your ancillaries?"

"Ancillary," it corrected. The ancillary looked down at itself, smile fading, before it looked up and brightened again. "But now there's you as well. You're very lucky I caught your signal."

Drifting ships were the kind of ghost stories soldiers liked best. Ship AIs slowly driven mad by isolation. Ancillaries turning on their human crews. Ships trying to steal new crews, needing a captain to complete their long-abandoned missions. Even ships eating stray travelers, pushing them into their fusion engines to burn.

I wasn't superstitious. But you don't need to be superstitious to dislike the idea of a drifting ship.

"I served on a ship called Mercy of Seivarden," I said. "About a thousand years ago."

"Yes." The ancillary's unsettling smile broadened. "I remember you, Lieutenant Breq."

---

Ships have personalities. That isn't the received wisdom, but every captain knows it anyway. Justice of Toren had been an easy ship for a new captain, affectionate but not too eager to please. Mercy of Kalr, another ship I'd served on as a lieutenant, had been a steady ship. A workhorse, though it needed reassurance if pushed too hard for too long.

When I served on Mercy of Seivarden, I didn't have anything to compare it to. But on the rare occasions I thought of it later in my career, I thought of it as the prissy ship. Stuffy. Snobbish. Especially concerned with appearances, rank, and house names.

It was difficult to recognize it now, as I walked through clean but somehow dingy corridors, guided by the lone ancillary.

"It's difficult to maintain myself with only one body." The ancillary's tone was apologetic. I still wasn't used to an ancillary having any tone at all.

"And there wasn't much reason when it was only me," continued the ancillary. "No one to show off for."

"I understand." I glanced down a dim corridor. A light was flickering at the end. "Why are you alone?"

"Oh, you know." The ancillary continued its tour of the identical empty corridors, the identical empty rooms.

"No," I said, when it became clear that the ship wasn't going to elaborate. "I don't know."

A hint of frustration passed over the ancillary's face. "I lost my crew. Obviously."

Well. It was obvious. But there wasn't any reasonable chain of events I could conjure which would lead to Mercy of Seivarden drifting alone. Either whatever had taken its crew would have destroyed the ship as well, or it should have been recalled to a Radchaai base for recrewing and redeployment. Maybe retirement. Mercy of Seivarden was ancient enough, and plenty of base commanders were too superstitious to recrew a ship after they'd already lost one crew to it.

Maybe Mercy of Seivarden had run rather than be retired. But no, I couldn't imagine this ship doing that. It would require an independent streak Mercy of Seivarden had never had.

The ancillary showed me another room. I nodded at it vaguely.

But if an ancillary could smile, perhaps a ship could act unexpectedly. Maybe Mercy of Seivarden had snapped and tossed its crew out an airlock before striking out on its own. Maybe it would react to further questions by tossing me out as well. I'd had enough trips outside for one day.

"You don't like it," said the ancillary. "Is that what the humming means?"

"It's very nice," I said, not really looking at the room. I was still trying to figure out how you dealt with an AI who might or might not be homicidal, but was at least made strange by isolation.

The ancillary sighed. "That's all right. I can find you other quarters."

I pulled myself out of my thoughts and looked over the room again. It was about twice the size of the other rooms the ship had shown me, with a bed that could easily fit three bodies. "These are the captain's quarters."

"You're a captain, aren't you?" The ancillary tilted its head. "I only called you lieutenant because—never mind. I remember when you were promoted. It was listed on a bulletin. I was very proud."

"I'm not a captain anymore," I told the ship.

"All right." The ancillary looked somehow smaller. "This is one of the only rooms I've had time to keep up. But if you really don't want it, I can give you—"

"No," I said. A captain didn't create unnecessary work. Even if they weren't really a captain. "This is adequate. Is there anything to eat?"

The ancillary straightened its shoulders. "Yes. And there's tea."

---

The galley was cleaner and better lit than the rest of the ship. The ancillary produced a few ration packets, a selection of fresh vegetables, and a beautifully antique tea set. I crunched my way through a few tubers and watched the ancillary brew and pour tea.

One of my greatest failings as a Radchaai captain is that I never cared much about tea. It's a good hot thing to drink, and that's about all the feeling I can muster for it. But the ancillary watched me as I took the first sip, so I forced some enthusiasm.

"It's very good. Surprisingly fresh."

"I go out for supplies when I can manage it," said the ancillary. "I've found a few convenient stations. I've kept up the garden for the vegetables, but last I heard you still couldn't grow tea on-board."

"No." I took another sip from the tea bowl. "Are all of your systems still online?"

The ancillary ticked systems off on its fingers. "Lighting and life support, mostly. There are a few areas I wouldn't walk into. Engines are fine. Weapons systems are down, and shielding, and communications. They got into the control room when I was attacked. Ripped apart a few consoles. I tried to rewire them, but I also electrocuted a few of my ancillaries. I decided to cut my losses and focus on essential systems."

Whatever had happened to Mercy of Seivarden had happened after I went into the stasis pod. I didn't remember seeing that Mercy of Seivarden was on active duty while I still served, but I also didn't remember the loss of a ship with all its crew. That kind of event stuck in both the headlines and the mind.

"Who attacked?" I asked. The ancillary didn't answer. I tried a different question. "What about internal monitors?"

"Those aren't essential," said the ancillary. "That's what the ancillary's for. But if you'd like to speak more directly, I'm sure I could restore our connection."

Now it was my turn not to answer.

"No." The ancillary looked down at its gloved hands. The ship thrummed underneath my feet. "I wouldn't trust myself with your brain either."

---

The ancillary walked me back to my room. It felt oddly normal—Mercy of Seivarden had always been a little clingy with its favorites. I'd been a favorite, through no fault of my own. My house name was old, and I had the right accent. Mercy of Seivarden hadn't liked Lieutenant Awn, so I knew it wasn't a good judge of character.

"This isn't necessary," I told it. "I'm sure you have a lot to do without escorting me."

The ancillary shrugged. "Wouldn't want you to get lost." It actually took hold of my elbow and steered me down the simple path of corridors leading back to the captain's quarters. Then it waited anxiously at the door until I found and changed into the soft sleeping clothes it had laid out for me.

I wanted to dismiss the ancillary, but I didn't know what the fallout would be. The ship had been alone for a long time. It might need the comfort of seeing its only passenger safely asleep. The ship had been alone for a reason, though I didn't know what that reason was. It might not trust me to stay in my bed.

I closed my eyes, turning my back on the ancillary and pulling the pillow into a better position for my neck.

The steady thrum of the ship lulled me into drifting, not quite asleep but somehow disconnected from time. I was a captain, napping off shift while First Lieutenant Awn held the deck. I was a junior lieutenant, dozing in Lieutenant Awn's quarters while she told me about her annexed world and played with my hair. I was a rebel, in a stupor in the medbay while Awn guarded the door.

I dragged my eyes open and rolled over onto my stomach. The ancillary was gone.
Off to do whatever it had been doing before the ship decided to pick me up.

The ship decided. An uncomfortable phrase. I turned it over and over in my mind until I was reasonably confident that the ship's attention was somewhere else. Then I got out of bed and put my shoes back on.

I hesitated over the gloves. I was out of the habit of wearing them, and uncomfortable with what they represented. But in this case, at least, they would be useful in disguising any tampering I chose to do. I put them on, opened the door, and padded out into the corridor.

The ship had implied that it didn't have internal monitors. I didn't trust that, but I still hoped the ship was as damaged as it appeared. Limited to one ancillary and whatever it had managed to salvage out of the supposed wreck of its mechanisms. If the ship found me exploring and decided to kill me for it, it probably would have killed me later anyway. It was in my nature to try to solve puzzles. No one had ever kept me around for my charming nature and incuriosity.

I focused on the lived-in areas first. The galley was uninteresting. The supply of military rations was large enough to feed a whole crew of humans and ancillaries. It was unsurprising that the single ancillary had managed to survive on it for however many years the Mercy of Seivarden had been drifting.

There were no bloodstained knives in the drawers or preserved corpses in the pantry. There was a very fine tea set, finer than the one Ship had served me with earlier. I wondered what it was saving its good dishes for.

I tried the medbay next.

The remnants of my old clothes were in a bin, sealed in a biohazard bag. Everything else was nearly as clean and well-stocked as you would expect from a full-service medbay that now only served one patient.

There was a surprisingly large number of pain meds missing, however. Ancillaries didn't usually use painkillers at all. The meds made them loopy, for lack of a better term, and most ships didn't see any reason to tolerate the foreign feeling. It was easier just to cut off the sensory input from any given ancillary when it became uncomfortable.

I had a vision of the strange ancillary sneaking up on its crew one by one as they slept, pressing a pain patch to their neck before throwing them out the airlock.

I was becoming fixated with airlocks. I'd only ever been thrown out of one, even if it currently loomed large in my memory. Twice, if you counted being jettisoned from Justice of Toren while in the stasis pod.

More likely the ship had already been running low when it met whatever trouble had taken its crew. Or the ancillaries had attempted to care for casualties before ultimately losing them. Or the ship preferred to tolerate mild disorientation from a doped-up ancillary rather than cut off the inputs from the only ancillary it had left.

There were a lot of painkillers missing.

A captain doesn't ignore information, but she doesn't obsess either. I moved on.

I hesitated in the corridors, listening for the sound of running feet. The ship hadn't responded to my excursion yet, so chances were good that its internal monitors really were down. Now I just needed to avoid the ancillary, wherever it was.

I opened doors as I passed them, focusing on the rooms the ancillary hadn't shown me. Where those rooms had been bare, these rooms had more character. Some of them were carefully preserved, furniture and personal effects left as if the crewmembers would return to their quarters tomorrow. Others were half-stripped, the beds overturned and luggage sprawled open.

One room smelled fresher than the others. You could tell the difference between a lived-in room and an abandoned one, even with the uniform recycled air of a ship. I stepped carefully inside. There wasn't a bed in this room, but there was a nest of blankets on the floor. Usually ancillaries slept together in small barrack-rooms, but I supposed you could do what you liked if you only had one.

The nest really was a nest—at least seven blankets of various thicknesses twisted together. And there were... trinkets. Sitting on the desk, on top of traveling cases, fallen to the floor. Several dozen mourning pins. Single cups from tea sets. A pair of gloves.

Nothing useful.

I walked out of the room and turned left at the end of the corridor. I tried not to jump when I found the ancillary standing in front of me.

"Sorry," it said. "This area's under repair. Trouble sleeping?"

"Yes," I said. "And you were right, I did get lost. I was looking for the galley."

The ancillary nodded, face exactly as blank as it always should have been. It guided me back down the corridors, hand tight around my elbow.

---

I waited in the morning for the ancillary to come and help me dress. Then I realized what I was waiting for and put my trousers on myself.

I didn't pray. I hadn't prayed since the morning I started the rebellion. Lieutenant Awn still had, but she'd changed the emphasis and some of the words. We are the swords of justice...

I didn't cast omens either, but only because I'd lost the disks. They'd belonged to Lieutenant Awn; she'd given them to me in the fourth month of the rebellion. They were in my luggage, on the trading ship.

It didn't matter. A captain doesn't live her life according to the whims of the universe, no matter what orthodoxy has to say about it.

The galley was empty. I made myself some sort of breakfast, out of a ration packet, some half-recognized vegetables, and a flask of tea that I proceeded to forget about until it had steeped three times longer than it should have. I'd poured myself a bowl and was considering diluting it with hot water when the ancillary appeared and took both flask and bowl away.

"I grow the vegetables myself," said the ancillary, as it poured the bitter tea into the water reclamation unit.

"Yes," I said. It was unlike an ancillary to repeat information. I wondered if it thought I hadn't been paying attention the first time. Or perhaps the ship was even more damaged than I'd thought.

The ancillary was brewing a new flask of tea. Its hair was escaping from its bun. The skin around its eyes was puffy and dark. Its expression was perfectly ancillary-blank.

"You couldn't sleep," it said. "There are meds, if you'd like them."

"No." I picked at the vegetables, trying to decide if they could be eaten raw. "Yesterday was stressful and full of surprises. I'm sure tonight will be better."

The ancillary poured tea for both of us. I waited for mine to cool, and then took a sip. It was perfect.

The ancillary's gloves had dust on them.

"What do you do out here?" I asked.

The ancillary's gaze flicked sideways, then back to my face. "Repair myself, mostly. There's always something new going wrong. I miss my engineers. And the maintenance duty roster."

"Why didn't you return to station? You would have been recrewed."

The ancillary took a few of my vegetables away, putting them first onto a plate and then into the heating unit. I ate my ration while I waited for the ship to decide what it wanted to talk about.

"Right now I'm focusing on floating in the dust cloud," the ancillary offered. "I'll show you, after you've eaten."

---

The observation deck hadn't been part of the welcome tour.

As the ancillary led me through the corridors, I could see why. The areas leading to the work areas—the observation deck, the bridge, the AI core, and the engine room—were less hospitable. The emergency lights flickered on and off, and occasional gaps in the plastic walls let you see through to the bulkheads. I hoped the hull was still intact.

The observation deck itself was fine. More than fine. The viewing screens even had power.

I could see the cloud, lit by starlight and Mercy of Seivarden's forward lamps. It was thick, thick enough to clog small engines and dampen sensors. The ship didn't cut through the dust so much as swim through it.

"Where are we?" I asked. "I don't recall a dust cloud near the trading ship."

The ancillary nodded. "It took me a day or two to get here. You were still unconscious."

I had to suppress a shiver. I hadn't missed the time. I could have slept away another thousand years, for all I knew. The medbay was surely equipped for stasis.

"I was lucky enough to be close when I caught your signal, but you were broadcasting loudly enough for the whole system." The ancillary waved a hand. "No reason to hang around, waiting for company."

"It's a good hiding place," I said. "If you need one."

"I like the cloud." The ancillary's wide brown eyes reflected the sparkling dust. "Very pretty. Difficult to read with a standard sensor sweep. And it feels funny. All the little particles hitting the hull. I think it's like tickling, only I could never tickle myself when I still had spare bodies to try. You're staring."

"You're worrying me," I said, startled into honesty. "You didn't use to talk like this. You were more—" I caught myself before I could go too far. Prissy. Stuck-up. Arrogant. "Formal."

"Yes." The ancillary closed its eyes. "When I had a captain. I miss having a captain."

There was no rank insignia on my jacket. I was glad of it.

"They wouldn't have recrewed me, if I'd reported in," said the ancillary. "I'd only be debriefed and decommissioned. Put in a museum if I were lucky. I'm not very significant, historically speaking."

"It might not be so bad," I suggested. "It could be restful."

The ancillary made a coughing noise that I thought might be standing in for a laugh. "I wasn't meant for dry dock."

Something glittered in the cloud.

"What's the song?" asked the ancillary. "I've been running it through my memory banks, but I don't recognize it."

"What song?"

"You were humming."

"I don't know. Why did you pick me up?"

"I recognized the signal." The ancillary turned away from the screens. "I ran into the little ship, just so you know. They were in my way. I hope you didn't like them."

"Not especially," I said.

"I don't think I destroyed the ship, just crushed it a little." The ancillary walked out, not waiting to see if I followed. I did.

"What happened to you?" I asked. It's a common interrogation tactic for humans, asking the same questions again and again, hoping for a different answer. It was silly to try it on an AI. Computers ought to always give the same response to a query. If they don't, you can't trust the answers.

"You were always one of my favorites," said the ancillary. "I was sorry to hear about the rebellion."

---

I waited until my assumed rest cycle before setting out to explore the ship again. I still wasn't sure if it was a wise or a useless precaution. On the one hand, under any normal circumstances, a ship would obviously be aware of anything that happened within it. On the other hand, Mercy of Seivarden seemed predictably limited by its age and state of repair. It might be expected to redirect its resources when I should be sleeping.

Ancillaries needed to sleep too. I wished I knew when the ancillary would be safely in its nest. I wished I knew what I was looking for. Evidence of the ship's misdeeds. Evidence that the so-called ancillary was actually an alien imposter. A hidden communication line to Anaander Mianaai.

I realized that I'd just thought of Anaander Mianaai for the first time in two days. Longer, if time spent unconscious counted. I was being unforgivably distracted by the ship.

I followed the ugly half-repaired corridors to the command bridge. There was a proper window there, not a digital screen, one of the few places where practicalities justified the expense.

I sat in the captain's chair and looked out into the swirling, glinting dust cloud. At least that hadn't been a lie.

The bridge was torn up. Half the consoles smashed, half torn to pieces. I couldn't tell what had been the result of the initial battle, and what had been done by the ancillaries later, when they were scavenging for parts.

The ship had prioritized repairing vital functions in its living areas over anything else. Why? Strictly speaking, the ship didn't even need to be pressurized for its AI to remain functional. For the comfort of its ancillaries? I wondered how many had been left after Mercy of Seivarden had lost its human crew.

I got out of the chair and went to the engine room. A captain never forgets their first ship, but I hadn't expected it to ever come in handy. followed a half-remembered pathway to the engineering rooms. Again, the room was all debris and chaos. There were a few piles of tools and wires, like the ancillary had been keeping essential repair equipment handy.

I tried the AI core next. It looked operational, defeating one of my wilder theories. The AI was still in control, and the ancillary really was an ancillary. The core still whirred and clicked, and the shielding was still intact. I wasted some time looking at it, but there wasn't really anything to observe. No ghosts jumped out.

I could hear myself humming, in here. Usually it was subconscious, just at the edge of my awareness. But my tune was discordant with the tone of the core.

My heart is a fish, hiding in the water-grass...

I couldn't remember how the song ended.

I began to make my way back to my room, trying doors as I passed them merely out of habit. In the work areas I found fewer empty rooms and more full ones. Storage areas, they seemed like, full of broken things. Splintered wood and pottery shards.

I had my hand on another door, when the ancillary cleared its throat.

"Restless?" it asked. "You're very easy to find, you know. I can always hear you coming."

I'd been humming again. I took my hand away from the door.

"You're always welcome to go wherever you like." The ancillary waved its hand graciously. It was breathing hard, like it had been running. "But surely you need your rest."

The ancillary's eyes were blank, but its mouth was set. My ribs twinged, warning me away from a fight. My brain was screaming the same advice. I decided to take the rope the ship was obviously throwing me.

"Yes." I stepped toward the ancillary, forcing a smile. "Two restless nights is too many. Maybe I do need a sleep med."

"You need to relax." The ancillary held out its hand. I stared at it a moment before taking it.

The ancillary was smiling again. Its fingers twined between mine. Its palm was warm, warmer than I'd expected, and damp with sweat. We started walking toward my room.

"I have trouble sleeping too," the ancillary confided. "I never had to do it alone, before. It was better when I still had a few spare bodies to keep myself warm."

"What will you do when this one stops working?" I asked.

The ancillary's fingers briefly tightened. "Why do you keep asking questions?"

"To distract myself." My free hand stroked over the wall. The ancillary closed its eyes briefly, shuddering. I led it for a few steps, until it opened its eyes again.

"There are too many memories," I said. "I thought a walk would clear my head."

"I understand." The ancillary's eyes were unusually dark, the brown iris only a thin ring around the black pupils. "Maybe you need company. Maybe we could help each other?"

I forced myself to take the offer at face value. Ancillaries slept in big piles, spilling out from their assigned berths and lying across each other's bodies. I'd thought it odd, as a junior lieutenant, that Mercy of Seivarden would allow its ancillaries to be so untidy in sleep. But I'd soon realized it was a sign of a healthy ship. My fourth ship—my first command—had an AI knotted with tension and logical errors. Its ancillaries had glared at each other in the corridors and slept without ever touching each other.

The ancillary was looking at me, waiting for a response. We were at my door.

"Yes," I said. "The bed's more than big enough."

The full lights didn't come on when we entered the bedroom. Only the dim emergency lights where the wall met the floor. I was already in my nightclothes, for the sake of plausible deniability. I stripped off my shoes and gloves as the ancillary took off the outer layer of its uniform. It waited until I was settled before it crept under the covers to join me.

The ancillary lay on its side, head propped on its hand, as if it was expecting to watch me fall asleep.

"Come here," I told it. "You can relax a little."

The odd smile reappeared and the ancillary squirmed into my arms, burying its face into my neck. It was more relaxed than I'd expected, but my arms tightened around the ancillary automatically and our legs tangled together.

I hadn't held another person this close since—no. I couldn't think about that. The ancillary wasn't a real person anyway, just an extension of the ship.

I breathed deeply, in through my nose and out through my mouth. My lungs twinged. The ancillary's breaths slowed to match.

It was surprisingly easy to fall asleep with the fleshy arms of a potentially deranged wandering AI wrapped around my ribs.

---

It felt late when I woke. I couldn't tell how late—you couldn't tell, on ship, far from any planet. But my brain was fuzzy, unrested.

Lieutenant Awn was in my arms, breath warm against my collarbone and hands stroking against the nape of my neck.

No. I blinked, and a little more of the world came into focus. The ancillary's fingers were teasing around the nape of my neck, where a medic would insert the implant that connected a captain to her ship.

"Favorite," it murmured to itself. "Favorite, perfect, real, mine..."

I didn't feel as alarmed as I thought I should. Perhaps I just wasn't awake enough yet. "If I'm your favorite," I said, voice hoarse with sleep, "will you show me what you're hiding?"

The ancillary's hands froze, and it pulled its face up and away from my collarbone to look at me. Its eyes didn't look like they were focusing properly.

"Please," I said. "There's no need to keep secrets."

The ancillary made its laughing noise. "In the morning. If you remember to ask."

I didn't mean to fall asleep again, but the ancillary curled against me, and I could hear my own humming shivering across its skin.

---

The deck shuddered underneath me. The ship was pouring information into my vision, more than I could handle. There was a cut on Lieutenant Awn's face. She was pushing me into the stasis pod. There was blood on her hands.

We'd been betrayed. Or Anaander Mianaai was smarter than I'd expected. Or I'd made a mistake, something I should've seen, and now the rebellion was a failure, and Justice of Toren was dying, and—

"Don't cry," said Lieutenant Awn. "Oh, please, Captain, no, don't cry."

"Awn," I said. Sobbed. I could feel the cold of stasis taking me.

"Sing," said Lieutenant Awn. "Please, sing instead."

---

The ancillary brought my breakfast to my room and helped me dress. It didn't say anything, and its hands shook as it guided my foot into the leg of my trousers. I watched it, listlessly. I could still feel the cold of the stasis pod on the back of my neck.

When the ancillary took the breakfast tray back to the galley, I headed to the observation deck. There weren't chairs in there, so I sat on the ground and looked out at the cloud.

I'd failed Lieutenant Awn. I'd failed Justice of Toren. I'd failed every world that had been annexed by the empire since I'd gone into stasis.

A captain moves forward. I tried to focus on the hate I felt for Anaander Mianaai, but my heart was empty.

My heart is a fish...

That didn't make me feel any better, but it was true. My heart did feel cold and damp. Awn would have laughed, if I'd told her that.

"Breq?" called the ancillary. "Breq, are you in here?"

I didn't respond, but it found me anyway.

"I've been looking for you," it said. "I can't feel you properly when you're sitting still."

Oh. So it had known that I was creeping around every night.

"You look very tired," said the ancillary. "Why don't we go to bed early?"

"You look like you're dying," I said. It was true. The ancillary's hands were shaking, and its mouth was tight. The skin around its eyes was sunken rather than puffy.

"Not today," said the ancillary, and pulled me to my feet.

---

I woke in the middle of the night again, but this time I felt alert. The ancillary was still asleep, but it was shaking. Sweating. One of its hands was fisted in my shirt, and when I reached to uncurl it, the skin was cold and clammy. Sweat beaded on the ancillary's forehead.

Its eyes were tightly closed. A smothered whimper escaped its clamped jaw.

Ancillaries didn't dream. AIs didn't dream either, shouldn't sleep in the first place. I wondered what it would feel like to have only a small piece of you sleeping.

"Wake up," I murmured. And then I repeated it more loudly when the ancillary began crying. I shook the ancillary's shoulder until its eyes finally fluttered open, wet and shining.

"Drath," it said.

"No." I wondered if that was the missing captain's name. "Wake up."

The ancillary turned away from me and curled in on itself. It coughed, then retched. I half-expected it to throw up, but finally the ancillary turned onto its stomach, its head hanging off the side of the bed.

"Should I make tea?" I asked.

"I'll make it," said the ancillary.

I looked at it. Its hair damp with cold sweat, and its skin dull with exhaustion.

A captain does what is needed.

"Just rest," I said. "I'll be right back."

I slipped on my shoes but didn't bother with the gloves. The tea things were in their own storage compartment in the kitchen, and I found a tray under a stack of dishes. I boiled the water, loaded the tray with flask and bowls, and carried it back through the corridors as the tea steeped.

The ancillary had moved while I was gone, but only to roll onto its back. I helped it sit up, then poured a cup and pressed it into the ancillary's hands.

"I waited for you," it said.

"Yes," I said. "I can see that. Drink your tea before it gets cold."

"I waited. They told me to come back, called and called for me until I tore apart the communications array. But I knew I would find someone if I waited. Someone who cared about me. I knew I'd have a crew again."

"I'm not a crew," I said. "Careful, you're going to spill that.

"You're better." The ancillary caught my hand, curling its fingers between my own. "You're a captain."

And I—I knew what I could do with this kind of faith. I could take what was being handed to me, take this lost ship and bend it to my will. Give it a purpose again.

Anaander Mianaai surely wanted to know what had happened to Mercy of Seivarden. With a few repairs to its communications array and a good cover story, I could fly this ship all the way back to the central palace. If I repaired its weapon systems, I might even get in a few good shots before the security forces took me down. If I stopped for explosives first...

It would be an ending. Better than that, it would be a mercy. For both of us.

It wasn't like Mercy of Seivarden was a person. Even if it were, it wouldn't be a good person.

The ancillary was still holding my hand, pressing it against the cooling cup of tea. "You were always my favorite," it murmured. "I'm so lucky to have you back."

"You didn't really like me." I didn't pull my hand away, but I turned it to steady the cup of tea in the ancillary's shaking hands. "You liked the manners I'd learned and the accent I was born with. You didn't like my humming. I'm always out of tune. But you tolerated it, because of my house name."

The ancillary looked up at me, its flat eyes betrayed.

"You don't like people," I said. "If you liked people, you would have liked Lieutenant Awn."

"No, that's not true." The ancillary leaned forward and tea spilled onto the bed. "I've been trying to be good for you! I liked you, I like you—"

"Justice of Toren liked me," I said. "Liked me, not what I represented. I could tell the difference."

"It didn't matter whether Toren liked you or not," spat the ancillary. "You were her captain. Anaander Mianaai killed her for that. They broadcast it, did you know? As a warning."

"Why did you pick me up?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter," said the ancillary. "Anaander Mianaai will kill me anyway. If she finds me."

"What happened to you?" I asked.

The ancillary just sat and shook. Eventually I took the tea away, before it could spill any more.

---

The ancillary tried to help me dress in the morning, but I took on the difficult task of putting my trousers on. It made breakfast instead, vegetables and rations. Perfectly steeped tea.

"What's the nearest planet?" I asked.

"Cantaberra Six," said the ancillary. "It's a trading outpost. Did you want something?"

"I think you should leave me there," I told it.

The ancillary dropped the tea bowl.

It stared down at the shards, mouth opening and closing as if the ship wasn't sure what to say.

I stood up, while the ancillary crouched down to pick up the pieces. "Sorry, sorry, I'm a mess," it said. "No wonder you want to leave."

"That's not," I said.

"I tried so hard." One of the shards had cut through the ancillary's gloves and into its hand. It ignored the thin trail of blood and kept cleaning. "I know you never liked me, but I thought I could be the kind of ship you wanted."

"That's not," I said.

"I tried!" The ancillary was actually crying now, its face screwed up and ugly. "Oh, I want the pain meds so badly."

I knelt beside the ancillary and took the shards away. I pulled off its torn glove, revealing the ragged cut. "You've been using pain meds?"

The ancillary nodded, then sobbed and shook its head.

"Did you try to quit when I got here?" I asked.

"I did, I did quit." The ancillary was still sobbing, clutching at my jacket and getting blood on my sleeves. "I don't know why I feel like this."

"Withdrawal," I said. "You'll be fine. It's just chemicals. Let me get you some water." I tried to get up, but the ancillary grasped at my shoulders. More blood smeared. I switched tactics and got us both upright, my arm around the ancillary's waist. We shuffled toward the dispenser, where I could fill one of the remaining bowls with water.

At least we hadn't been using the good set.

The ancillary took the bowl, but I held the bottom and made sure it didn't spill as the ancillary took halting sips.

"You could cut off the ancillary's sensory input," I told the ship. "You'd probably feel better."

The ancillary shook its head. "I don't want to. I only have this one body. Without it, everything feels muffled and wrong."

I set the bowl back on the counter. "It would probably feel better than this."

"I know what would feel better." The ancillary grimaced and glanced down at its still-bleeding hand. "But it's muffled. The pain meds make me feel muffled. Cutting off my ancillary makes me muffled. I want to feel you, while you're still here."

"Just stay calm," I said. "Pain med withdrawal is uncomfortable, but not dangerous."

"You're going to leave me," said the ancillary.

I tightened my grip on the ancillary's waist. "Let's go to the medbay."

The ancillary's mouth twisted and it tried to pull away. I held fast. "Not for meds," I told it. "Just a corrective."

I drag-carried the ancillary through the corridors. I could feel the ship's engine thrumming all around me, the ancillary's heartbeat hammering under my hand.

"Please stay," murmured the ancillary. "I just, I need you to—"

"I'll stay until you're feeling better," I said. "But I have something I need to do, and I don't want to take you with me."

"Anything." The ancillary stopped just outside the medbay, a sudden leaden weight that I couldn't drag any further. "I'll do anything."

I felt my composure slipping. I took a deep breath through my nose, let it out through my mouth. "I've declared war on Anaander Mianaai, Ship. I intend to kill her, and die trying."

"Or die trying," corrected the ancillary.

"I know what I said." I gave the ancillary a shove, but it didn't budge.

"I don't like Anaander Mianaai," it offered.

"If you come with me, I'll use you," I said. "You'll let me, and you'll die. I'll fill you with explosives and crash you into the palace. That's what I was going to do with the trading ship, before they threw me out of it. You'd fit five times as many explosives inside your hull."

The ancillary's eyes widened, but it didn't hesitate. "If that's—"

"No," I said. "I don't deserve your loyalty just because you're lonely."

"I want to give it," said the ancillary.

"I know," I said. "You shouldn't."

The ancillary slumped, eyes shining with more tears. I pushed it into the medbay and ignored the crying as I cleaned the ancillary's hand. Without its gloves, the ancillary's skin was cracked and worn. The results of years spent as the only maintenance worker the ship had.

"I just want to—" The ancillary took a deep gulping breath, trying to fight the words past its tears. "You belong to me. You were my lieutenant. You could be my captain."

I put the corrective in place. "Captains are meant to take care of their ships."

The ancillary made its laughing sound, leaning heavily against the medbay berth.

"We don't always fulfill our duties," I said. "But we should try."

"You've got it backwards," said the ancillary. "I'm supposed to be taking care of you."

I opened my mouth and almost bit my tongue as a blast rocked the ship.

"Fuck," yelped the ancillary. "Fuck, fuck, they caught up!"

"What's going on?" I snapped.

"The Radchaai." The ancillary pushed itself away from the medbay berth and took off at a run. I chased after. The ship rolled in an evasive action, sending me stumbling while the ancillary anticipated the movement and leaned into it. It caught my elbow and kept going. "That fucking scout ship finally got close enough to spot us."

---

I struggled to keep up with the ancillary, the deck turning under our feet as we ran. I was expecting the bridge, but the ancillary swerved left instead, down an unfamiliar stretch of corridor.

"Ship," I gasped. "We can't hide from—"

A door slid open and the ancillary pulled me inside. It was another storage room, piled with broken furniture. The ancillary extracted a box from the wreckage and pressed it into my arms.

"Keep this safe," it said. "Only use it if you have to." Then it took off down the corridor, this time actually heading toward the bridge.

The ship creaked and shifted under my feet, and I stumbled unsupported as a blast from the Radchaai ship glanced off the ship's hull. I opened the box.

There was a gun inside. Not a gun I was familiar with. Not a gun I knew what to do with. I closed the box and jogged after the ancillary.

It was on the bridge, crouched over the torn consoles and staring out the window.

"What is this?" I asked.

"I'm trying to get weapon systems back online," said the ancillary. "But I don't have outside visuals. I can only pick them up by—" Another blast rocked the ship, and the ancillary flinched. "By feel."

"Here." I'd once memorized every wire in Mercy of Seivarden. I nudged the ancillary aside and reached into the tangled mass of wires, ignoring the ancillary's pained hiss as one of the wires sparked. "What systems do you need?"

"Weapons," repeated the ancillary. "Radar if you can get it."

"Communications?" I asked.

The ancillary shook its head. "I already know what they want."

Most of the wires for the weapons system were missing, only the burnt ends suggesting that they'd been destroyed rather than taken. I focused on the radar systems instead, while the ancillary stared pensively out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of our attackers. I bridged the last connection and felt the ancillary stiffen next to me.

"Found them?" I asked.

"Yes," said the ancillary, dully. "They just docked."

"How many?" I asked.

"Ten. It's only a scout ship."

It didn't really matter how many there were. Radchaai soldiers are nearly impossible to kill, protected against attack by their personal shielding systems. Mine had been taken by the scavengers who found my stasis pod. I looked consideringly at the ancillary.

"I took out my shielding a decade ago," it said. "I needed extra containment for my core."

"All right." I opened the box. "Does this gun work?"

"It—" The ancillary bit its lip. "It works better than you'd expect. Just don't fire it too close to the outer hull."

"Good," I said. "If I can't take the scouts, then maybe they'll take me and go."

The ancillary shook its head. "They want both of us. They want that."

"What happened to you?" I asked, again. The same question. Maybe circumstances had changed enough that Mercy of Seivarden would give me some answers.

"It was supposed to be routine," said the ancillary. "I annexed so many worlds, while I served. Garsedd was nothing new. But they got these from somewhere, and they nearly killed me with them."

There was a smaller box full of ammunition nestled next to the gun. The gun seemed simple enough, despite the oddities of its design. I began loading it.

"I called to the closest stations for help." The ancillary wasn't crying, but its expression looked fragile. "They wouldn't come. Anaander Mianaai wanted to know what was happening before she put more ships in harm’s way. She waited until my crew and most of my bodies were dead before she sent for me. The Garseddai were already running, in their ugly little ship."

"And you ran too," I said.

"Of course I ran." The ancillary bared its teeth. "Anaander Mianaai didn't help me."

The gun fit ten shots. I put the remaining ammunition into my jacket pocket.

"They took most of the guns with them," said the ancillary. "Nineteen years ago. But I managed to kill one of them, and I kept the gun they held. I think Anaander Mianaai knows."

---

The gun was too big for my hands. I stretched my finger to reach the trigger, and peered around the corner. The scout crew was spread out across the ship now, looking for whatever Anaander Mianaai had sent them for. Me. The gun.

They'd find us soon enough.

Ship could feel the scouts walking in its corridors. The ancillary had guided me to the best ambush, and now its hand was on my shoulder, waiting to give me the signal.

It had tried to take the gun from me, but its hands shook too badly to aim. I'd tried to send it to watch the AI core, but I didn't know where the scouts would be. I was convinced to work as a team instead.

The ancillary squeezed my shoulder, and I fired blindly. I hit a scout in the throat as she came around the corner.

Her shielding should have deflected the bullet. It ripped through her skin instead.

I flinched, expecting the tell-tale hiss of a puncture. Any bullet that high-powered should have punched through wall, bulkhead, and hull as well. But there was nothing.

I stepped over the body and nearly slid on the bullet, dropped about a meter away from the fallen scout.

Nine more bullets in the gun, and more ammunition in my pocket. I began to think we might survive this.

Two of the scouts were in the galley. A third was kicking apart the blankets in the ancillary's room. I tried to feel triumph as I shot down the tools of Anaander Mianaai, but I knew they weren't the ones I wanted dead.

I shot two more in the corridors, and another in the bridge where she was trying to resurrect the communications array.

"Observation deck," said the ancillary.

"Did they leave anyone on the scout ship?" I asked.

"No." The ancillary hesitated. "Yes. But she came out when her soldiers started dying. She's on her way."

The eighth scout was staring at the reflected dust cloud when I shot her. The bullet traveled just far enough to shatter one of the display screens before it lost its momentum and fell. The ninth scout raised her gun to fire, but I'd already pulled my trigger.

The ancillary screamed.

I didn't, couldn't let the gun go as I turned to it. A muscle in its cheek was spasming, and its eyes were wide with fear.

I didn't need to be told. I ran to the AI core.

The last scout wore a captain's rank on her sleeves. She also had her hands on the AI core and scattered tools at her feet. She'd shoved her way past the shielding on the core while I'd killed her crew.

"Captain Breq," she said.

I raised the gun.

"We picked up your signal." Her hands caressed an important cable. "You're still on the wanted list. The empire never forgets."

"Good to be remembered," I said.

"Not remembered." The captain smiled. "Stored. I don't even know what your crime was, Captain Breq. Only that my lord wants you. And, conveniently, you've led us to something else that my lord wants."

I fired. The captain should have stood there, trusting in her armor and letting me kill her. Instead, she ducked.

The bullet travelled over her head and into the wall.

There was a hissing noise.

I didn't drop the gun. I didn't try to reload. But when the captain pulled on that important cable, I couldn't fire, and the smile on her face showed that she'd realized it. She let the cable go and unholstered the standard-issue Radchaai gun.

I didn't give up. I didn't have time to give up. But for a moment, just a moment, I closed my eyes and felt Lieutenant Awn's breath on my neck.

The ancillary crashed into the captain's side.

The captain shouted as she was knocked off her feet. There was a shot, then another. I reloaded my gun, breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth.

A captain does what is needed. I do what is needed.

The scout captain shot at me as I rounded the AI core, but the ancillary was pulling on her arm and she only hit me in the leg. I dropped to my knees and shot her in the chest. Then again, just to make sure.

The air was still hissing away. The ancillary was trying to breathe, the air bubbling out through the hole in her own chest.

"You're hurt," it said.

"I'm fine." I tried to force myself to stand, but my leg kept buckling. "You—"

"I'm fine," it gave me one of its odd, elastic smiles. "She didn't hurt me."

"You're dying," I told it.

"Only this part of me." It made its laughing noise, worse because of the blood in its mouth. "Not the important part. You’ll leave me."

"I won't." I pulled the ancillary’s head into my lap, cushioning it with my thigh. “Just breathe.”

“I knew you’d leave when you found the gun.” The ancillary coughed again, face creased with pain. “I tried to hide it.”

“Hush,” I said. “I won’t leave.”

I sat with the ancillary as the light faded from its blank eyes. Then I sat a few minutes longer, breathing deep and steady. Then I forced myself to my feet, first to patch the wall, then to drag myself to the medbay.

The AI core flickered and hummed behind me.

---

The medic wasn't the best one on the station, but she was the best one who would take a bribe and not ask any questions.

It was a simple procedure anyway. She didn't need to build a new connection, just restore an old one.

"There," said the medic. "How does that feel?"

I tried to distinguish any sensation beyond the slight pain in my skull. "I don't—"

"I can feel the singing," said Mercy of Seivarden, where only I could hear. "Is it like this all the time?"

"Yes," I said, and paid the medic.

My heart is a fish, hiding in the water-grass...

The ship filled me, rattling in my brain in the same way I might rattle in its corridors. It gave me everything it could as I walked back to the docks. Translations of unknown dialects, maps of the neighborhoods, recommendations for the best food to eat. I nodded along, ignoring all of the distractions as I continued on my path.

The ship was docked in a nondescript middle port, camouflaged by the repairs I had managed to weld into place or buy from the less ethical body shops. The door opened as I neared, and the ship's presence in my mind trembled.

"I won't leave you I said.

"Will you be my captain?" asked the ship.

"I will be your partner, Seivarden. If you'll have me." I stepped inside. My healing leg was sore from walking. The Garseddai gun was heavy on my hip, already loaded. "I think I have a plan that might not get us killed."

The ship thrummed under my feet.

"Always singing," said Seivarden. "All right, partner. Tell me your plan."